For an artist whose career spanned only five or so years, Wimmitji Tjapangarti remains enormously influential in the ongoing story of Balgo art. He produced a relatively small number of acrylic paintings throughout his career.

Wimmitji walked to Balgo Mission in the late 1950s; the last of his family to leave the desert. In 1957 he was at Natawalu (Well 40) on the Canning Stock Route when his family group famously encountered a helicopter for the first time. The evacuation of a sick Helicopter Tjungurrayi to Balgo by a survey team (with a helicopter) is now part of desert lore, as is the travel of his family members north to find him. Wimmitji followed behind this group later with his first wife, Wongw...